#and look at everything from an artistic perspective

[twopoppies]

Sometimes I feel like parts of this fandom just won’t allow Harry and Louis to grow up. Or they can’t grapple with what that would mean for how they see them and feel about them. It’s like the Harry and Louis of 2011 are preserved in amber in their minds, forever young and moony-eyed over each other, hungry for anything their wild new life was putting in their paths.

I think about this a lot with Harry, in particular, especially lately. The Harry who was 21 in 2015 when the Azoffs were laying the world at his feet for the taking was a very different man, I would imagine, from the one about to turn 31 next week. I don’t think it’s entirely outside the realm of possibility that the past few years have drastically changed his perspective on who he is and what he wants, and that he has perhaps come to a place where he is trying on a new version of himself he’s only recently met. (If you believe in astrological stuff he just came out of his first Return of Saturn, which shakes everything up.)

Frankly, I really hope things have gone a bit psychically akimbo for him in the past few years - he’s damn lucky he walked away from Holivia without being permanently labeled a home-wrecking himbo by the GP, (especially with all the drama rama that was coming out towards the end with the salad dressing and the lying down in front of cars. 🫣) Saturn’s meddling aside, I have to imagine someone as thoughtful and introspective as Harry has spent quite a bit of time reflecting on that chapter in his story and finding the lessons in it.

No matter who we are, life is about change. People change. What people want from life changes, either because of experiences we have, (or maybe because of experiences we’re denied.) But any way you look at it, none of us are the same people at 30 (or 40 or 50) that we were when we were 20. And if we are, that should be cause for tremendous concern.

Harry and Louis are no different from any of us. They put their pants on one leg at a time in the morning just like the rest of us, they just have the space and opportunities their wealth provides for them to pursue their personal growth with perhaps much lower stakes than those of us who have to pay rent every month and pray we have enough stashed away to someday retire. I am curious to see how this growth manifests for both of them over the coming years, in their art and in how they choose to show up in the world publicly. I want all of us to give them the space and grace to be who they want to be.

Sorry for the novel here. You just really make me think sometimes, Gina!

In some ways I understand wanting them to stay the same, but honestly, I don’t think I could love an artist who didn’t learn and grow and examine their life and how it relates to their art over time. And I wouldn’t doubt that the last few years has really changed both of them—they’ve been through a lot (both good and bad).

[zahri-melitor]

If we're being mean about it, I think it's entirely in-character for Tumblr to call any story falling outside the Wayne Family Adventures paradigm "out of character". I mean, did that phrase ever really mean anything more than "I didn't like this characterization?"

Oh this is a spicy take, and one I’d like to dig into.

I don’t think that’s entirely true (see how much time tumblr spends yelling about their hatred of Tom Taylor, when Tom Taylor’s characterisation beats and storytelling are tonally similar to Wayne Family Adventures, to the point I’ve actively recommended his Nightwing run as an entry point for WFA fans who want to read main universe comics), but yes I agree that as far as superhero comics go, ‘out of character’ is most frequently used as a cudgel for ‘I didn’t like this storyline/characterisation’ or quite often ‘my favourite was in the wrong here/wasn’t the viewpoint character’.

My personal conception of characterisation in comics (and for any long running universe handled by multiple writers over decades, actually), is that every character has a range of what is ‘them’, and different writers slide back and forth along the scale of that range. Bruce Wayne written by Paul Dini (as a caring, empathetic hero) and Bruce Wayne written by Frank Miller (as a gritty angry hero raging at the world) are both Bruce Wayne, they’re just very different conceptions of him in the range.

Not everything ends up getting captured by that range; there are occasions when you get stories that are genuinely out of character, where there’s no continuity between that story and other appearances of the character, where every other writer and the fandom at large generally agree to drop and ignore that story. However, those occasions are less common than most people think, and what’s far more common is a later writer massages the story and applies a soft-retcon to ‘fix’ the situation.

That Danny Devito Penguin and Catwoman story where they solve COVID by vaccinating the world then disappear into the sunset as a couple? Ignored by everyone. Hal Jordan as Parallax? Subject to multiple retcons in terms of the reasoning for how and why things happened.

A bunch of the biggest ‘that was out of character’ arguments are over things where someone has decided THEY don’t want to treat some story as having happened (usually because it makes their beloved character look bad), and then a later story goes “okay, but how about we reference that story, look at it from a different perspective, and how that changes things?”. The comics fandom as a whole is large, widely distributed across platforms and communities, and very much does not think in one mind. Generally for every story you hate, there are others out there in the fandom who really enjoy it. Even truisms in certain communities over what is ‘bad’ don’t necessarily hold outside those communities. (Rob Liefeld still gets work as a comics artist, and while some of that is related to who he’s friends with, people still buy his comics!)

And finally, there’s what I like to think about as the comics perspectives issue. One of the unusual characteristics of superhero comics is that they’re wide shared universes…where we get to see stories from a LOT of different characters’ perspectives. Characters tend to appear in stories differently when they’re the main character of that title, to when they’re a side character or an opponent of the main character. That’s because the viewpoint character colours how that character is perceived. Bruce can be a noble hero in Batman, the father figure his kids are struggling against in their titles, a self-righteous blowhard in an antihero book like Poison Ivy, the irritating know-it-all colleague in Green Arrow, and the reliable best friend in Superman/Batman. They’re all still Bruce Wayne; different characters just have different relationships with and perceptions of him.

And a lot of complaints about ‘so and so is out of character’ is because in their own title that character has had some self discovery and characterisation to better themselves…and then in a book where they’ve got a walk on part, they don’t appear to have changed. And that’s a ‘this book is not about your blorbo’ problem more than a ‘your blorbo is out of character’ problem. Your blorbo might be being used as the heel or the obstacle in the title. The viewpoint character may not have seen this internal change as it hasn’t manifested externally. Maybe, change is hard and characters can and do backslide. Or maybe…this title isn’t about blorbo and the writer is just using the default ‘everyone knows’ characterisation for them because they’re not actually that important to the story outside of the writer needing someone who is likely to do X.

It's a sliding scale! This is how Jeremy Adams Flash and Si Spurrier Flash are both two great, fun Flash books…but tonally in completely different universes.

[im-no-jedi]

the (true) problem with the TBB season 2 finale

the more I’ve been thinking on it and pondering wtf happened and why the fandom is reacting the way that it is, I’ve come to a conclusion about the season finale that I think explains it all.

over the years, I’ve been able to train myself to separate my personal opinions from things and look at them from an artistic perspective, despite the subject matter. things like blood and gore - although they still gross me out - aren’t as bothersome to me since taking theater classes in college and learning the science of how things like that are done in media. I’m able to look at things and critique them artistically as opposed to with pure emotion.

while I do still react on pure emotion (as some of y’all witnessed last Wednesday 😝), I also try to look back on things with that artistic perspective in mind. which is what I’ve been doing with The Summit and Plan 99. and while I can appreciate everything that happened artistically and dub each individual thing that happened as nothing short of a masterpiece, there’s one major issue that I realized right from the start that has been solidified now for me more than ever.

it was way too much content.

I’ve said already that I thought The Summit was done really, really well. the pacing was good, and it felt like the high-stakes TBB episodes we’re used to. but then Plan 99 hit. and golly gee, did it hit hard.

pardon the comparison, but everything that happened in Plan 99 was a literal train-wreck. Tech’s sacrifice. everyone getting injured. Cid’s betrayal. the Empire invading Ord Mantell. Hemlock capturing Omega. Crosshair and other Clones being experimented on. Emerie’s reveal of her true identity. and to top it all off, it ended on a cliffhanger.

that.... is WAY too much to absorb in one episode. like... waaaaaaaaay too much.

let’s just look at the fandom itself as an example. what’s everybody focused on right now more than anything else? Tech’s sacrifice. that in of itself is the hardest hitter here, by far. that alone was enough to carry the finale in terms of emotional intensity. but no, it didn’t stop there.

the team came out of the whole thing battered and bruised, with Omega seemingly taking the hardest hit. not too terrible, it’s happened before, like when Omega got taken by Cad Bane right after the whole Bracca endeavor. but here’s the thing. they barely had time to even grieve the loss of Tech before the Empire showed up on Ord Mantell. adding that plot point in so soon after losing Tech was literal lemon juice on our open wounds.

and then they had the gall to slap us in the face with everything on Mount Tantiss. do you know I’ve seen literally NOBODY talking about Emerie? we literally got confirmation of another female Clone, and NOBODY is talking about it???

this is what I mean. individually, on their own, these plot points are good and were done well imo. but geez louise, I felt like I went through a Super Saiyan fight having all of that thrown at me in one single episode. I feel like even if something like Tech’s sacrifice had been put at the end of The Summit as opposed to Plan 99, it might’ve alleviated things just a tad. still would’ve been too much though.

I’ve been absolutely blown away by every story choice made this season. I feel that way about the entire show, honestly. but I also think the finale was a misstep, solely in terms of the amount of content shown. I feel like this should’ve been the opener for season 3 as opposed to the end of season 2. at least have Omega getting captured be put off until then. cause right now, despite Omega being one of my favorite characters, I’m also still more focused on what happened to Tech more than anything else! and don’t even get me started on the Emerie thing, good GRIEF 🙄

again, individually, these plot points are GOOD. very good imo (except maybe the Emerie thing but I digress 😝). but man... why did we have to get them all at once. I remember, I literally stopped breathing at one point while watching Plan 99; that’s how bad it was. I was so overwhelmed and overstimulated and emotional that it was hard to even function. @jam-n-ham and I just sat in silence for like a full minute once the episode was over, unable to process what had even just happened. and well... I don’t necessarily count that as a good thing 😬

so yeah. all this to say, despite how good the individual plot points were in Plan 99, it was just far too much content for one episode. I think the whole thing with Ord Mantell and Mount Tantiss should’ve been held off for the beginning of season 3. because putting all of that immediately after the loss of Tech made it nearly impossible to even absorb properly as an audience. and the fandom’s reaction is proof of that.

[martyryo]

Swapshipping ☕

[shmowder]

In case you missed it, Game Rant did an interview with Nikolay Dybowski about Pathologic 3. Here is the link for it.

And here are the bits that stood out the most to me:

Q: The non-linearity of time and how it will be related to the nature of the Town are also core story components. How did this affect design and direction?

A: Connecting non-linear time with a long, narrative-heavy story that involves many characters and cause-and-effect chains would be extremely difficult. We focused on what the player feels in the moment rather than on gathering information in the right order. The latter approach works well in shorter formats like Her Story or 12 Minutes, but in Pathologic, it would be overwhelming.

We wanted players to feel like “everything, everywhere, all at once”—similar to Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five. Different versions of reality coexist simultaneously, creating a “quantum” feeling for the player. Look at the time travel mechanic as an opportunity to correct mistakes, or even to make deliberate mistakes in order to unlock new paths and ideas. It is like a "sanctioned save scum."

-

Q: Conversely, how will it (Pathologic 3) connect to and consider the events and characters in Pathologic 2?

A: Consider it as two subjective retellings of the same events. This is the same Town, the same twelve days, the same participants and events that occurred in the Haruspex’s story. But this is a different perspective. Like two witnesses recounting the same event in Rashomon, the stories vary greatly, each focusing on different details. Finally, we always give our heroes the right to make honest mistakes, forget, and even lie. Every narrator is an unreliable narrator.

-

Q: How did Pathologic’s previous philosophical explorations help inform or play into the narrative and themes here?

A: Everything we now see as true and valuable, we’ve kept. Everything we’ve outgrown, like childhood clothes, we either reimagined and reinterpreted to give these ideas new meaning, or let go of them. After all, we’ve grown a lot (hopefully, along with the industry). When I first conceived Pathologic, I was 21 and completely alone. Now I’m 47, surrounded by incredibly talented people who enrich this universe as much as I do, and that makes a difference.

We’ve kept the idea of the tragedy of utopian projects. We kept the idea that the plague is a voice of the natural order—one that the thinking human mind cannot accept—and that it has its own truth. We retained the belief that evil cannot be defeated with its own tools or outplayed on its field; yet it can be defeated realistically in a different, orthogonal way. In another dimension.

-

Q: It’s mentioned that the Bachelor is searching for an immortal man in Pathologic 3. Can you say if this is in reference to Mark Immortell?

A: No, there’s no connection between Simon Kain (one of the town’s rulers) and Mark Immortell (the director of the town theater). Mark is a clown. He awkwardly mimics Simon, parodying him, which is why he takes on this pseudonym. He's fully aware that he’s a jester, and the gesture itself is ironic.

-

Q: What do you hope players will take away most from Pathologic 3?

A: The hope that humanity remains a promising and capable species.

-

Also, new game pictures and screenshots dropped:

(some are old ones I forgot to post)

[kjzx]

One day there's gonna be a person online that will take people's requests of any color and draw it in a person's skintone in a convincing way, see: a brown that looks like a light skinned white person's skin in a darker lighting, a green that looks like a healthy person's skin in neon lights, and so on.

And this will be a huge thing for the online art community in the west. I think the thing it lacks right now is this realization that the knowledge that tree trunks are brown and leaves are green are just something observed under the specific conditions of a sunny day, even in these very conditions these very leaves and trunk can look blue and purple and gray and so on if cast in shadow, especially in art

[sludgeguzzler]

honest to god i think i spend more of my time artblocked than drawing. im being so serious right now when i say i havent drawn something decent/beyond a draft in more than 2 months and its driving me insane

[catmask]

hi im actually happy to expand on my thoughts about this

its not that relating to art or projecting our own feelings onto it is bad or unnatural, its something thats bound to happen when learning to empathize with the experience of another person being shared with you.

what i do feel the need to critique though and why the piece resonates so heavily with me is i feel much modern relation of/consumption of/interpretation of art is focused so heavily on what we as individuals take away from it and less so what the artist themself was trying to say.

its my thought that art is meant to be a conversation between creator and voyeur. at the end of the day the creator will have an intent and the viewer will have an interpretation. but a large part of why we consume AND create art is to understand perspectives that arent our own to reframe the experiences we do have.

do you see the trouble then in a conversation where one only talks about themself? or, for the instance of many art pieces that get meme'd, when nothing can be engaged with in earnest or attempted to be understood beyond what is able to be laughed at?

itd be the same as saying 'are we not allowed to make jokes now?' not at all. but theres a time and a place for everything. i think that its good for us to sit with and internalize our experiences of art, but i feel like its no mistake in the generation we are in that art is a commodity first rather then a form of self expression that we always look for ways we can peel it back and wear it as our own skin.

at the end of the day, art and its relatability become a product, and the person inside it scraped out so we can fit ourselves inside rather than sit quietly alongside them.

[drchucktingle]

sometimes buds ask’ what is it like to be a neurodivergent artist?’ and this is great summary: the charts can look like this, and at same time people will be endlessly posting on how you are ‘not real’ or ‘a bit’. you can hold bestsellers in slot 1 to 4 and still not be 'serious'

i am ultimately ok with this. i love my trot and would not have it any other way, but i think it is worth investigation. when irony poisoning has seeped into everything, how many times does a neurodivergent person have to say ‘actually this is NOT so bad its good. its just good’

when you are autistic, or queer, or both, how much proof do you need to be considered good art? or good business? what do the charts have to look like for me to be a ‘real’ author? or allowed my face mask at a library association conference? or one person not a group of writers?

im coming up on a decade of writing tinglers soon, and people are still talkin about my ‘serious’ works vs my ‘joke books’ and at every turn, as kindly as i can, i shout from the rooftops: THEY ARE ALL SERIOUS BOOKS. THIS IS NOT A BIT.

but its hard when buds have had ‘the correct way to be a writer. the correct way to be an artist. the COOL way to react to a book that is TOO weird’ pounded into their heads by internet culture. 'kill it with fire' they say. 'i need eye bleach' they say without thinking. a line.

heres the thing, the tide IS turning. theres buckaroos jumping in and saying, ‘I want to be a part of this’ and for that they are being rewarded. the publisher who took me seriously is lookin pretty dang good right now with these charts and these sales. i am honored and moved

over time there will be more buds who shed that irony mask. the tide of sincerity is powerful, and the tide of love is inevitable. it is difficult to stand strong in our uniqueness but it also pays off, and I hope to be a shining example. eventually THE TIMELINE BENDS TO YOU

so this is not a thread to complain. i have been trotting long enough that these things do not really bother me. being made fun of and disparaged as ‘not legit art’ while also being objectively successful at the things im made fun of about is kind of the ocean that i swim in.

no. my point of this is to say THANK YOU to those of you who have been trotting by my side over these years. THANK YOU for proving love to me. im so honored by your support, and you should know that YOU have seen beyond the irony poisoned veil that stops many others. YOU get it.

and to those with their own unique perspective on creation: look what you can do. yes there will likely be a lot of resistance to something different, but there is also a LOT of reward. YOU can trot a new path. YOU can prove love is real, not in MY way, but IN YOUR OWN WAY

anyway thank you for reading buckaroos. thank you for your support. LUCKY DAY comes out next summer and it is probably as FAR OUT and existential as the tingleverse has ever gone. you can preorder it here

[hopeastrz]

AQUARIUS THROUGH THE HOUSES: where you’re rebellious, the most outstanding and peerless individual.⋆🫐⋆𐙚₊˚⊹🪼♡

CHECK OUT SEPTEMBER SALE: fixed price on any and all of my readings 17 DOLLARS only.

Aquarius is the sign of sudden changes, the sign of unpredictably and where we may feel like we don’t belong or have no desire of following the crowd, that’s why we end up getting repelled by that thing, and find ourselves breaking the rules to make our own path.

NOTE: enjoy this post and don’t forget to reblog, thank you for your support, lots of love xoxo!! ₊˚⊹౨ৎ🩵.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 1ST HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° ON THE AC.

You may have felt the need to constantly change yourself, always have something unique going on, either a new hairstyle, haircut and maybe even naturally you have a unique face, you don’t follow the current fashion style, you have a distinctive sense of style and may prefer to wear vintage things from the past like, wear 90s makeup, or you have a keen eye with you spot trends before they even become a thing. you’re also the type to break traditional beauty standards and public image rules, that may be because you’ve been told and maybe even forced from a young age to act a certain way, project a certain persona of yourself or to possess certain mannerisms, that’s why you hate being picture perfect or just ordinary, you seek uniqueness and rebel in being yourself!, (having pluto on 11th or 10th house may cause that)

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 2ND HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 2ND HOUSE.

Very unique way of handling money, you may have grown fed up with your parents perspective of money for example like: ‘you need to hard work for you money,’ or ‘money is so hard to get that’s why we’re financially unstable’, which stirred this untamed desire within you to challenge it and come up with new ideas to get money, you may work a unique source of money and you may love to keep old antiques!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 3RD HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 3RD HOUSE.

You have always felt that you don’t belong in your community, your school (you’ve been unlike your peers, you didn’t follow them, which may have resulted in you being bullied or becoming a loner), or the place you grew up in aka your community and your place on the social pyramid, that’s why you took the matters in your own hands and sooner or later you’ll have this urge to change everything, you may feel this need to climb up your social status which could result in you moving to a rich neighborhood for example, change your environment entirely. You may also be the most unique sibling, they may be your step siblings or you just don’t look like them!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 4TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 4TH HOUSE.

You didn’t want to follow your family’s path for you it seemed, you didn’t want to be like them or you just wanted to be very unique, your mother may have had some expectations for you but you didn’t want to even meet them. This placement may be prominent in the charts of new money wealth makers, you may change your family status drastically, and you may not want to be dependent on them or their resources.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 5TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 5TH HOUSE.

Very distinctive talents, you date the most unique people and maybe even have a very distinctive taste, you go to many underrated artists concerts, visit unique or unknown places during your vacations and also have some real different interests.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 6TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 6TH HOUSE.

You have a unique routine or a specific lifestyle, your parents may have been chaotic, which made you seek discipline in your life, or very strict which made you seek freedom, either way you have a very unique routine in the gym and in your daily life!, also you may have some unique pets and work ethic!, you may be known as the most creative one between your coworkers.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 7TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 7TH HOUSE.

You are uniquely independent, the most distinctive partner, someone who came to break marriages stereotypes of your family or this generation!, you may hate the idea of codependency,having a traditional partner or relationship, which may result in you preferring not to marry at all!, there’s just something about marriages that you see worthless or just unnecessary, and you may prefer to be on your own, your freedom is your one and only love, since you may be traumatized by your own parents marriage. (Scorpio on the 4th house!.)

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 8TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 8TH HOUSE.

Well well, the usual, you may have some unique kinks or sources of income, in other words your job may pay you some money but it won’t be your main source of income, you may know some unique taboo stuff or are interested in some real dark and underrated practices!, you also may be a very unique partner in bed!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 9TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 9TH HOUSE.

You may feel like you don’t belong to your country, the era you are born in or you may feel very close to another culture than your own. Another thing is that you have been living in another country than the one your parents or you were born in!, I’ve seen this placement occur daily with natives who chose to immigrate and save their families or their own future. Also you may studied a very unique, specific major or went to a unique and underrated university.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 10TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 10TH HOUSE.

Your job is unique, and also your reputation, you may have a very weird and almost taboo public image, which may have nothing to do with the real you!, people say the most flabbergasting things about you, and the rumors you may hear about you make you question everything thing seriously from how bizarre they are lmao, also you may have a unique job of career!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 11TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 11TH HOUSE.

You’re the most unique one in your friend group, or you just don’t befriend people who look like you, in my head i pictured a group of friends full of rockstars and then there’s you all sunshine and rainbows lmao. You also may have some very rebellious dreams you chase, things that people may feel like they’re impossible for you to achieve!, like to be a millionaire or billionaire!.

AQUARIUS OR URANUS IN THE 12TH HOUSE | AQUARIUS DEGREES 11°, 23° 12TH HOUSE.

You are the most unique when it comes to being spiritual, like these people are the best when it comes to spiritual advice or guidance, your parents may have been so religious or quite the opposite so you had to become spiritual on your own and make your own path, also you guys sleep.. weirdly????, pls stop tossing and turning😭!!.

[juubli]

Here are some of process snapshots of this piece of Astarion in Baldur's Gate.

I am a messy painter and I often adjust and change the designs as I paint. (Mostly because I don't have the patience to do proper line art haha)

I start out with a rough sketch, I usually sketch ideas out on my ipad and move to my cintiq to work with colors.

Next I block in rough color thumbnail. I keep this part messy as I just want to figure out the value structure and the overall mood.

At this point, I have collected a myriad of screenshots and reference images from the game, pinterest, and also from artists work that inspires me.

With the references on one screen, I start to paint the details, I work from foreground to midground to background. (Sometimes I'll bounce between the depth when I get bored from painting one thing for too long)

Sometimes after I block in the colors I'll make adjustments. I didn't like how warped the perspective was getting on the building on the screen right side, so I adjusted the vanishing point and added more tiers to the design. I went back into the game and looked at more how the stairs were designed and figured it out more thoroughly with a sketch on on top.

I think sitting down and doing the details is the most time consuming part. I still want the focus to be on the character despite all the detail going on the background. At this point I'm toggling on black & white filters constantly to check the value, grouping everything in the background together, making sure the lighting frames the subject in focus. At this point I realized, I forgot to paint Astarion's hair LOL, and that the bg was getting a bit too detailed, so I used a more textured brush and painted away some of the edge details of bg buildings.

Last, I make final adjustments, and I make a overall lighting/fx adjustment folder. Adding in some noise, adjusting the contrast, color balance, and lighting over all and call it done!

Link to Print shop!

[comicaurora]

Recently with Arcane ending and the backlash/critics the second season received I've come to feel like it's even harder to start writing and creating art (as in, "if even people on that level aren't perfect, what chance do I have of making something truly good?"). How do you deal with this feeling, to start creating, knowing all the mistakes you're gonna have to make?

Well that's an interesting question. I think Arcane is actually a really good example for this. Because as far as I can tell, everything Arcane did with its story was, from the creators' perspective, a success.

I didn't see any glaring mistakes in Arcane season 2. I just saw a lot of decisions that served the themes they wanted to explore - love being unbreakable even when the participants have hurt each other unfathomably, sisters and sister cities falling naturally back into care and alliance when faced with an outside threat, the blinding allure of vengeance and rage and how it's a trap that must be actively escaped.

I think it's always important to meet a story where it's at. "I wanted the story to be a different story" is never a useful criticism. A storyteller needs to tell the story they think should be told. I think Arcane is throwing some people because season 1 in isolation looked like it could have been setting up some different threads - I was expecting them to more thoroughly explore the class divide in Piltover and Zaun and how they could navigate mending their relationship after so many atrocities and injustices inflicted on Zaun, but instead they used the sister cities as a mirror for Vi and Powder, and Vi and Powder are two people who love each other and have hurt each other and despite that will never stop being sisters, so that gets reflected back into Piltover and Zaun. I don't think that's a perfect analogy, but I do think it's the analogy they were going for.

A story cannot be every story. They picked the story they wanted to tell and executed it in the time they had, and I think they did good. That's a lesson we can all internalize as artists; my art, once created, cannot contain every possibility it held before it existed. And even if I fulfil my vision as closely as possible, some people are going to wish I'd done something else. And if those people have such a strong vision of the story they wish I'd told instead, it sounds like they should probably tell that story, since it's already taken shape in their mind. "I wish this story had scrapped its plans and themes and explored this OTHER idea" isn't useful as a criticism, but it is a very powerful artistic motivator.

[wikaa33]

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “FAILED SHIFTING ATTEMPT”

now, you might ask yourself: “what the hell do you mean by that?”. well, let me explain it to you, because realizing this did in fact change my perspective on shifting.

we all know that we live in a world with endless possibilities. there are infinite versions of realities which exist simultaneously, every single one of them is as real as the next one. considering this fact, there is an infinite amount of outcomes of each act.

same goes for shifting.

when you attempt to shift and you wake up in your 3D the first thing you think about is probably something like: “why didn’t i shift? what did i do wrong?”. love, you did everything perfectly.

remember, there is a version of you that shifted that night. there will always be a version of you that shifts after a “failed attempt”. there are two outcomes: you either shift or you fail, but!

by waking up in your 3D you simply become aware of a version of yourself that failed to shift to one specific reality. but it does not mean that a version of you who shifted does not exist. it’s quite the opposite.

looking at the LOA and the theory of multiverse we can all agree on the fact that it is impossible for you to not shift. you either become aware of a reality where you shifted or of a reality where you failed. those two coexist with each other. looking at it from another perspective, you always shift. you are literally simply unable to fail, because as i said, there will always be two possibilities - two realities following an attempt to shift.

how can you talk down on yourself knowing that there are always an infinite amount of outcomes to each act? how can you doubt your abilities when you are the one who decides of which reality they will become aware of? you hold more power than you can even imagine - and that is wonderful. treat shifting as a wonderful journey of self-discovery, realizing your true potential as well as your power. isn’t this amazing how you can shape your reality exactly the way you want it to be? isn’t this wonderful how fluid and limitless being you are, having a chance to experience every single thing, moment, reality that you could ever desire?

embrace it. embrace being an artist painting their own view, an architect building their own work from imagination. embrace living as a being who is willing to step out of the norms.

and i repeat:

you. cannot. ever. fail. at. shifting.

[vydumaj]

I’m so annoyed I read a little blurb in the university student magazine talking about how quickly music trends these days move, songs stay on charts for short amounts of time and people only know 15 second snippets from tiktok and the author concluded it with “good for those of us who can’t remember song lyrics” ??? girl what……

[taylor-titmouse]

i've been seeing it popping up again with the ao3 stats that just came out, and it's something that's nagged at me for a while in porn spaces, and let's be real--fanfic spaces and porn spaces are more similar than they are different--but there's this bizarre sense of entitlement to representation from the audience of what are unambiguously self indulgent creative works.

with fanfic i usually see it as complaining about a lack of f/f in comparison to the predominate m/m. in porn, it's usually a lack of certain body types/genders. and what i'll see is anger that those things aren't represented enough by artists/authors to suit the audience's taste. there's not enough f/f in my fandom, people aren't drawing characters that look like X enough, etc. and it just seems so... pointless?

you can't strongarm individuals into making the work you want them to make. you can't bully somebody into an interest. you can invite them to examine why they might not be interested in certain things, and they may come out the other side of it with a new perspective, but you can't force it. there is always the possibility of "i see why someone could be into that, but I'm still not and don't want to make work about it." and where do you go from there? people are just not going to be interested in or attracted to everything, no matter how you moralize it.

if you want to see more of something in an entirely self-driven space like fandom and porn, you have to make it yourself, or find the money to pay for it. fandom authors and porn artists are not beholden to a publisher deciding what they get to spend their precious effort and boner on, no more than they are beholden to you.

[poofroom]

Here are some painting tips, as promised. I hope they will help beginner artists!

Composition

Position of characters on the sheet

Choose the location of your character to be beneficial to the appearance of the art in general, you can accentuate the important places where the viewer should look first by using perspective and composition.

Tone sketch

Set the lights based on references, but adjust to your own, favourable lighting.

Contrasts come in many forms. Contrast in color (warm and cold), values (dark and light), shapes soft and hard, straight and curve, etc.

Less is better. Work on the details of the most important part of your work while cutting down everything else. If you do strong detail in one place, don't forget to add looser detail in another so the viewer's eye can rest. For example: If you are detailing a portrait, don't detail the background as much. Next to a place of high detail, there should be a place of low detail so that the picture does not look overloaded.

All in all, you can twist and break perspective, anatomy and shapes to convey your idea better. No rules are made of steel, they should support your imagination, not restrict it

Anatomy

Break down objects into simple shapes to arrange them in space.

Check references! plasticity comes first, then structure (muscles are important, but proportions and line of movement come first).

Take a photo of yourself, you will be able to understand how to perform your pose naturally. Color/light.

Light is part of the composition, put it in a way that highlights the important things. Air perspective

General rules of composition. From the general to the particular, first prepare the general scene, correctly place contrasts and accents, make everything important in contrast, and take the unimportant into an aerial perspective. (aerial perspective, or atmospheric perspective, refers to the technique of creating an illusion of depth by depicting distant objects as paler, less detailed, and usually bluer than near objects.)

When all the points are ready we can start working out the details.

When all the details are finished again it's back to the overall picture, looking at it from a distance. Check if the accents you wanted to draw attention to are working. They should have the highest contrast. Check if the contrast is not created by objects on the edges, where you don't want the viewer to pay attention. For example, if you are painting a portrait then the focus should be on the face and not on the details of the clothes or details in the background. (You can always convert the image to black and white and check the contrast)

Save the stages of your work to check against the initial idea and see what things have changed for better or worse!